Sharpening Stones
:
Diamond or Silicon Carbide will work well on
all steels I use. Both of the minerals
are harder than the Vanadium Carbide in
the CPM steels and will cut cleanly. The
most useful all around stone is the Silic
on Carbide stone made by Norton. They
call Silicon Carbide Crystalon. This stone
comes in a 12 inch long by 2 inch wide
medium grit with Crystalon on one side
and India on the other side. The India
is a reddish yellow color and the Crystalon
is the gray side. India is Aluminum
Oxide and is not very effective on the hard carbide steels.
Norton also makes a
coarse grit and fine grit Crystalon only
stone in an 8 inch length. The fine grade
is a good choice for touch up and mainte
nance work, but the coarse is only good
for very aggressive blade re-shaping.
The diamond stones made by DMT and
others also work well for the hard steels
but require more work to get to the same
result in my opinion. The DMT red dot is
a good choice for an all around diamond
stone. Diamond stones are very expensive
and cost about 3 times what the Norton
stones cost.
I cut manila rope to test edge sharpness
and durability. A fine toothy edge will cut
rope cleanly and continue to cut for a long
time. If you can cut manila rope cleanly
then you can cut elk hair or pig bristles or
field dress a deer and slice cardboard all
day.
A good place to start for your sharpening
kit is the Norton medium combination in
the 12 inch and the fine in 8 inch. These two
will do it all. As the stones wear they
will tend to cup in the center. It is important to keep them
flat to get the best sharpening results. I use 100 grit
lapidary compound and water against a flat steel
or cast iron surface to do the flattening
work. Work in a circular motion against the
hard surface with the cutting medium
and water to make slurry. The stone will
flatten very quickly and the process also
cleans the stone and keeps it cutting
efficiently.
Leather Strop
:
After the edge is formed with the hone a
burr will be present. This is a very thin
piece flexible steel at the very fine edge
that just bends back and forth. This must
be removed so the edge will cut cleanly.
Obtain a piece of leather 2 inch wide by
about 12 inch long and glue it to a back
ing board (smooth side up). Rub some of
the slurry from the Silicon
Carbide stone into the leather to act as a cutting
compound. You now have a
very efficient strop. Use the
strop to remove the burr
formed during the sharpening.
Lubricant:
The Norton stones can be used with
water or oil but I have found that the best
lubricant is something like Windex.
You can pick up a house brand window
cleaner cheap at the Dollar stores and as
a bonus you have a spray bottle that
makes application easy. This fluid lubric
ates cools and does not leave an oil
residue on the blade. Just rinse the stone
in water and it is clean and ready to use
again. Keep the stone very wet so that
metal particles will float out and not imbed
in the stone.
